The skin of humans, particularly in the area of the face, will form wrinkles, particularly as a person grows older and/or is subject to exposure to direct sunlight. Even though the formation of such wrinkles have no physiological significance, they nevertheless may pose serious psychological problems to the person having them. In many societies persons do not like to show signs of aging and wrinkles are one of the primary signs of the aging process. Accordingly, preventing and/or eliminating wrinkles has been a major preoccupation of the human race since time immemorial. However, to date no truly satisfactory composition and/or method is known which will eliminate wrinkles and which does not suffer some decided disadvantage.
Among classic treatments for eliminating wrinkles there may be mentioned cutaneous aesthetic surgery which, although eliminating wrinkles, suffers numerous disadvantages including scarring of the skin, such scars being oftentimes difficult to conceal. Other methods for eliminating wrinkles include grafting of tissue which can be derived from a species different from that of the subject or which can be derived from tissue belonging to the same species as the subject. The former leads to a rejection of the tissue and the latter, although oftentimes not being subject to a rejection reaction, nevertheless leaves a scar where the tissue has been removed.
Other methods for eliminating wrinkles have included implantations from such diverse material as placentas, silicons, paraffin, vitamins, etc. The disadvantages of such implants are numerous and include rejection, allergic reactions and/or the effectiveness is limited to a restricted area.
The present invention obviates the disadvantages of the prior art methods discussed above by utilizing and implanting a composition under the area of the skin where the wrinkles occur, said composition being substantially non-absorbable and not subject to rejection or allergic reaction. The composition of the present invention is an injectable paste composed of finely divided particles of sterile cartilaginous tissue which is non-absorbable by the human body.
It is surprising that an injectable paste of divided particles of cartilaginous tissue are not absorbed by the human body even though dry powdered cartilage has been used heretofore in, for example, treating wounds. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,400,199 (Balassa) discloses utilizing powdered cartilage or the extract therefrom for healing wounds, said cartilage being taken from partially calcified skeletons of fetal origin or from very young or newly born animals such as calves.
The Balassa patent discloses removing tracheas of healthy adult beef cattle and digesting such trachea in an acetic acid and pepsin solution. The acid-pepsin solution is then removed by washing and the cartilage dried in a vacuum. The dry cartilage is then defatted by a solvent such as hexane and the dried and defatted cartilage granulated. The granulated cartilage was then ground to a fine powder and applied to wounds. Such cartilage, which has been altered from its natural state by drying and grinding to less than 40 microns is not suitable for preventing wrinkles because such cartilage will be absorbed by the human body in a very short period of time.
As noted above, the cartilage of the present invention is substantially non-absorbable by the human body when injected into or immediately under the skin. By substantially non-absorbable I mean that very little of the cartilage, e.g. less than twenty percent of the cartilage, will be absorbed by the human body within one year after its injection under the area of the wrinkle in the skin which is being eliminated.